Tell Me, Juicy, Do You Still Sleep With A Gun Under Your Pillow?

Now recently I have been doing a lot of thinking about my career, and I'm sure I've already bored you all to death with my usual array of options (Lawyer, Investigator, Meth Lab Operator, etc.). But the truth is, there is one more option I have yet to divulge; the ultimate career that I have never dared to actually attempt to pursue but still manages to seriously get my blood running, and that I am now legitimatley considering for lack of any current, more interesting ideas. Think about it: Juicy...as James Bond.

(Well, the female American version. One of Charlie's Angels, perhaps?)

Now there are a lot of pros and cons to being a covert ops field agent that had prevented me from really pursuing this before, but let's take a moment to analyse them:

Pros

• Guns
• I'd have to stay in kickass shape
• Travel and adventure
• Sexy outfits
• Get to use applied Chemistry
• Use analytical skills
• Use language skills
• Use badass skills

Cons

• Guns
• I'd have to stay in kickass shape
• I'd become government property (unless I went Charlie's Angels style)
• I wouldn't actually get my own theme music
• Even if I do get to keep said sexy outfits, and they manage to stay in one piece, they might smell of sweat/ashes/gunpowder/nitroglycerin
• Higher risk for STDs
• I'm not Bill Gates/Will Hunting/Our Valedictorian, so I probably don't have the brain cells for it anyway, and would end up stuck behind a desk doing the NSA's boring dirtywork.

Clearly, this is a far more legitimate dialogue than I previously thought. And after all, if we've learned one thing, I have no future as a physicist. Why you ask? Here:

Me: "But if they all clump together when they skydive, won't it be more dangerous because they fall faster?" (*SHAME! UTTER SHAME!*)


Oh, and quote of the week: "say hi to him, he has cancer"- Dad




** Or maybe not all all is lost for a carreer in physics! Yes, I foolishly forgot that the acceleration of gravity is a constant BUT...

1. P=MV=momentum
2. if V is a constant regardless of M then P will still increase due to M.
3. According to Newtons Law the painful force of earth that is exerted on them in impact is the equal and opposite force to the momentum they exert on the earth when they fall
4. ERGO- an increased mass may not lead to a faster descent, but it will still lead to more painful results upon impact for the entire party.

Ha! Take that Hawking...

Dirty Little Secret

I have a few guilty pleasures in life. This blog post is about one of them.


It all started on sad day of mild desperation (that probably had something to do with chemistry, boys/lack thereof, or confusion regarding my general overall direction in life) but once you pop, the fun don't stop. No, I'm not talking about drugs or what/who I was doing around this time last year, I am talking about this website. Though this logic doesn't usually help when I'm trying to comfort my friends, I've always found an intense amount of relief comes from knowing that there are tons of people in the world who are probably going through exactly what you are, or maybe even far worse. Yeah, your life sucks now, but at least you're not pondering suicide or overcoming child molestation. Dissastified with something in life? No worries, you're one of at least a million, and the world still seems to be functioning normally.

It's interesting to see that secrets actually tend split four ways. A large chunk are somewhat serious, profound truths that the author might well deny if ever confronted with (eg: "I live in a small, rightwing Christian town and I'm gay!"). The second aren't entirely secrets at all, but more like furtive, direct messages hoping to be found by happenstance. Their creators, for some reason or another, decided actually telling the intended recipient was a bad idea, but they were just so overcome with feeling they had to at least feed the fantasy that the message might still get through somehow. (These first two account for most of the emoness I'll be discussing later). The third kind are usually some sortof statement that's no secret at all, and really just intended for a mass audience that post secret is facilitating the attention of. The fourth run the gamut of categories, but they're more lighthearted and fun. Here's a personal favorite:

(And you all thought academia was a stretch...anyways...)

Now since the discovery of this great treasure trove of humanity my quality of life has generally improved; but I still like to check in every week anyway. After awhile the content of the cards does become a little pathetically predictable and wreak of emo drivel, but maybe we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss this. The majority of the cards contain a truth that's had a major, defining influence in someone else's life. While we all can distract ourselves with hobbies, TV shows, and (to a slightly less frivolous degree) jobs and careers, It's a nice reminder that the most important things in life often end up being the quality of our relationships with other people. Furthermore, it's nice to think that the world does still contain a few people who seem to really care about each other (even if it is often in that slightly overdone, emo, unrequitted way) or people who at least aren't the cold, heartless type that I generally figure the world is full of.



Long story short- keep 'em coming, I'm listening.

Some Things In Life Are Just Wrong

"Cookies are sometimes food." "Eat cookies after good stuff like veggies." What the fuck is this!? Response to childhood obesity my ass. I'm sure these kids will lose so much weight eating double the amount of food: cookies, and other "healthier" food to compensate. (Like maybe burgers and fries, or pizza) Just let the kids eat the damn cookies for chrissakes.













Trust me, they're disgusting.



Finally, Some adds on the side of my facebook page:

"An effective method. Tree Trial!"

"You and your group will experience the true sport of Montreal club hopping while avoiding all line-ups"

You'd think facebook adspace would be pricey and ergo worth a proofreading. Apparently not.



And a quick question: I know Apple is a fan of the whole sleek design thing (that's pretty much all they have going for them) but is it so abominable to aesthetics to have a right and a left click mouse? This whole two-handed control button thing is absurd.

Blogging Saves the Day!

This week two years ago, our favorite obnoxoiusly orange blog was born. To celebrate such a fantastic feat of my own attention span, I have decided to (try my best to) blog every (week)day surrounding the great commemoration of this event. I don't think I can think up any presents for good ol' MFA right now, but these things are always appreciated. Also, if anyone would like to present me with a red cape and goggles, I'm sure I could find a use for them.



While our cracked-out gamer friend has been awaiting the delivery of his fix in the mail, I too have been eagerly awaiting a questionable purchase. (No, it's not that riding crop...not yet at least) Having succumbed to the temptaion of instantaneous, spontaneous music purchases at only "$0.99" (we forget tax) a song and the laziness of corporatley controlled, pre-installed software, It seems that over time Itunes has become my main digital music organizer. And since those evil geniuses at Apple decided to put all Itunes purchases in a special format that could be played by no other competing MP3 player without an excess of effort (thus furthur enabling their ultimate goal of world domination) it was only a matter of time until I succumbed to masses and did the previously unthinkable. Yes, ladies and gentleman, I finally bought an Ipod.

Everyone, meet Burnette (or "Bernie" for short). She looks something like this:






At least If I'm going to help out a corporate giant I can have the satisfaction of knowing that some obnoxiously small part of my purchase went to go help fight AIDS. (I also mainly just have a thing for the color red.) Speaking of design, I consider this further Nexusy proof that all things awesome come from California (where it was designed), and that I must get there at some point in life.

I Don't Remember It Looking Quite So Awkward...

The other day, I attended what is possibly one of the most emo events ever. A middle school (emo) graduation (emo), followed by a dance (uber emo) for all the kiddies.

The class had about 30 kids in it, and it was funny because it seemed to be split up into two types of kids. Some looked like they could still be in elementary school, while the other half were probably taller than me and looked more like graduating seniors instead. (I swear, one of 'em could have passed for 21). The Catholic mass turned graduatuion ceremony dragged on a bit, but there were a few highlights:

• The black woman infront of us yelping "Woohoo! Halleluja praise the Lord!" and almost bursting into tears every time her overachieving son was honored.

• trying to guess, in this miniscule and tightnit class of 30, which one of the girls my cousin might have a crush on

• When they called out for the Honor roll students to stand up, and about five kids (including my youngin' cousin) stood up. My family was all proud and clapped, and I was too. But then they sat down, and the MC called out for all the kids graduating with High Honors to stand up, and there were a little under 10 of them. Hahah...ouch.

But like I said, this was a truly emo event. While we ate dinner in a church basement (If you haven't noticed yet, it was a catholic school) while being bombarded by slow, mediocre, gushy rock music (emo), my entire family kept commenting on "The Girl In the White Dress" that my (no longer so) lil' cousin was hanging out with. Granted even for a girl in middle school she was notably attractive: one of those tall, sociable, inherenlty radiant types. (Bitch?) but my aunt waived them off as "just friends". Regardless, (and trying to be the cool, understanding, older cousin that I am) I just respectfully looked away and drummed my fingernails while everyone else was half staring at them. God knows the last thing any one wants is to get your whole family involved in that kind of situation. Plus, it must be said that my cousin was on the shorter side of the class. My dad actually asked him about it (second hand embarassment, much?) and I think he said he liked someone else. Who knows. All I know is that once we left, and after that first dance of many started, then ended, it was either

a.) the best night of his life

b.) fun but mildly dissapointing; or,

c.) a huge bummer

Godspeed, youngin', godspeed. Oh, and welcome to Highschool. (so enjoy multiple choice while you still can)

I would usually spend some time reflecting on my own middle school experience [see title] or getting around the fact that "Little Joe"is actually old enough to think well for himself, mack on mini-hoes, and use the F word, but this cool older cousin just got wheels for the day. Peace!

Youz is Startin 2 Bugz Me! && <3

So everyone knows that the bumper sticker application is pretty much the most genius addition to that social networking site (whatcha call it again?) that we all know and love. But while wasting time browsing through stickers (not having a search option- also a genius idea causing us to waste hours on the application) I can't help but find myself a little annoyed. For starters, a large chunk of the stickers just look something like this:







This is all sweet and endearing at first, until you've read some girly, feel good saying for like the 50th time in the same cutesy font and you start to wonder "are girls just pathetic, insecure people who need to be constantly reminded of their self worth, or are most guys just douches?" (excellent question) Then again, girls are by no means afraid to hide their inner bitch, as seen here:

A little scary, huh? Yeah I (the ex) would really choose to say that over bumper stickers, and I (the new girlfriend) would totally keep that on my profile. Then of course, the cousin to these bumper stickers, is something like this:












Again, cute, endearing, meaningful....but do we really need hundreds of them even though they all say essentially the same thing? I mean really that was so creative. Another close relative of these stickers are these:







Now I know as well as anyone that the bumper sticker application can be an amazing way to share feelings, but can we cut the emo crap? Yeah thanks, I mean really who wants to admit to that, and if they do who wants to display it on their profile. Speaking of, I would just like to point out that this one is entirely untrue (unless you're more pathetic than anyone I've ever met):












But that said, we should not forget the true genius of the bumper sticker application. Some fantastic disses can only be delivered quite so poignantly as a bumper sticker can, for example












and











And when the time does come to talk about feelings, Bumper stickers does offer us a fantastic variety of funny, creative, nonlame ways to do this in that awesome way that only bumper stickers can. For example








and













Oh, and just because I thought you all would enjoy this one:













(Cuz if he did it, it's clearly OK)

How About Them Apples?

Yesterday I was in an Antiques store and I saw the kind of computer they used to teach us to type on in 1st grade.




Oops, my bad. It was actually a more recent model for sale. Still.

That is all.

Something Intellectuabibble (Or Rather- Intellectuabubble)

Usually on that rare occasion when I watch the news, the part about the economy sortof just goes in one ear and out the other while all therandom figures just fly over my head. But today was a little different. I wasn't watching the local news (Crap programming that it is. Yes, I get it, someone else was raped or in a car accident and some local kindergartners got a visit from a senator...what can I do about this exactly?) but another show, I think it was something to do with a Mr. French.

Realization 1: Paying for college loans and grad school loans is leaving our generation in debt well into their 30s and 40s. So much for youthful and carefree years of youth when these days you can graduate grad school with almost $400,000 in debt, and no guarantee of a job that will pay well enough to pay this off, despite your hard earned degrees.

Realization 2: Unless I miraculously come into tons of money or move to England (Where they pay you to go to college) I'm not having kids. (See Realization1. Is that selfish?)

Realization 3: Today the cost of oil went up by 11 dollars a barrel. 11 DOLLARS! IN ONE DAY! You know how much the price went up yesterday? $5.50. Slight difference much? In a year, the cost of a barrel of oil has gone from around $60 to $140.

Realization 4: Do you know why? NOTHING! All this hype about an oil shortage that hasn't come yet (albeit impending, no one can deny that) is doing nothing but making gas even more expensive. In addition, some rich guys decide they wanna play the market, so they buy oil, making the cost more expensive and waiting for a peak in the cost, and then sell it for a profit. Since the spike caused the DJIA to fall 400 points, this is hurting the average American even more (Since stocks seem to be a far more popular portfolio option for most than crude oil). And of course, on the topic of rich guys, we have Big Oil companies and our favorite president ever, who doesn't seem to be doing much to help get the dollar value back up. Yes, those are all excellent reasons to make it fiscally impossible for my mom to ever drive on a full tank of gas, and to force many of my friends and their families to curtail usual, fun practices because they can only spend so much on gas money. While we can take a little time to enjoy the irony of big buisness and environmentalist hippies aiding the same cause, this is truly ridiculous. When does it end?!

Realization 5: So pretty much by the time I have to go out and support myself my entire generation is going to be doubly fucked. And what is the government doing about this? Well I googled a bit and got nothing, so I'm assuming that's the answer.

Realization 6: Damn that's depressing, no wonder nobody watches the news.

Realization 7: I think I'm a socialist, or at least America and it's leaders need a serious kick in the ass so at least that much can go a little red.

And Then She Realized, She Wasn't Alone...

Oh, and if anyone happens to be splashed at a pool this summer that hasn't been properly chemically tested yet (resulting in skin irritation from the high Chlorine concentration) I reccomend drying the area as much as possible, then mushing up a bannana and applying the product to the skin area in a 90% molar excess. Just a thought.

(nothing highly concentrated or intraveneous though, apparently thats part of the lethal injection process. Who knew?)